Madhuri Shekar is an American-born, Indian-raised playwright who has just been named as “one to watch” by American Theatre. Her play In Love And Warcraft won the 2013/2014 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting award and has since been produced throughout the USA. Following the on and off line life of college senior Evie, the romantic comedy explores a range of contemporary and age-old topics such as gaming and sexual expectations within relationships. With two female leads and entirely relatable characters, it’s a refreshing narrative to life in the 21st Century.

Written by Ella Carmen Greenhill and based on her own experiences with her autisic brother, Plastic Figurines is a personal play – one that couples a sensitivity to the the subject matter with the capacity to look at the unvarnished truth. As the fictional brother and sister Rosie and Mikey, Vanessa Schofield and Jamie Samuel only have each other to rely on after the death of their mother.

A gender-balanced evening of insightful monologues, The We Plays show once again that whether they are male or female, writer Andrew Maddock has a knack for creating well-rounded believable characters, whose circumstances are relatable yet unpredictable.

We interviewed CultureClash Theatre last year whilst their play Hannah and Hanna was running at the Fringe. This year they're back, and currently performing a new piece 'Under My Thumb' at Greenwich Theatre. This week Female Arts' Amie Taylor ran a Q and A with Serin Ibrahim and Cassie Hercules of CultureClash Theatre.

The hallmark of Emma Rice's inaugural season as Artistic Director at the Globe has been drawing out the feminine experience from Shakespeare's canon. Imogen (or rather "Cymbeline renamed and reclaimed") places the focus firmly on the Cymbeline's daughter rather than the monarch whose rash actions precipitates the play's unfortunate chain of events.

Isley Lynn's play Skin a Cat was a huge success at Vault Fest this year, receiving 4 and 5 stars across the board. This October it returns to The Bunker (London), Female Arts' Amie Taylor caught up with Isley to find out more about this piece.

Almost a year ago to the week, the female-led This Is Not A Test theatre company performed Three Sisters at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama – a postmodern meta-critique of one of Chekhov's most famous plays. This year, Chekhov has also been a source of inspiration, but this time drawing from another of his canon, The Seagull. Directed by Rebecca Reeves and performed by Maria Creasey (with support by Benjamin Victor as Medvedenko), The Seagull, Or Why Masha Always Wears Black is just as inventive as its predecessor, but in some ways more intimate.

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Abigail Tarttelin is a Hackney-based author. Her third novel Dead Girls will be published by Mantle on 3 May. It follows the award-winning Golden Boy, which told the story of an intersex teenager called Max. Comedian, author and broadcaster Rosie Wilby spoke to her.

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